Last night it was announced that the Feds had managed to seize a large chunk of the roughly $5 million paid to a Russian ransomware crime gang in order to release a major east coast pipeline that they had managed to shut down. That ransom was paid in the de facto currency of organized crime, Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies, and especially Bitcoin, have become the go to venue for largely anonymous financial transactions. In this respect they have replaced the now illegal practice of anonymous banking such as the legendary numbered bank accounts that once upon a time every narco kingpin, terrorist and dictator used to stash their money untraceably in places like Switzerland. Its pretty common knowledge that BTC's wild swings are being partly driven by naked price manipulation on the part of celebrity endorsements and criminal syndicates who use it both for money laundering and as a high tech ponzi scheme believing that its relative anonymity makes them near invulnerable.
Today Bitcoin took a dive, at one point losing more than 8% of its value. Hmmm...
No comments:
Post a Comment